Azerbaijani Health Ministry: New ban not aimed at restricting activities of pharmaceutical companies

The ban on the import of drugs without the annotation in the Azerbaijani language will be introduced on July 1 not to restrict the activities of pharmaceutical companies, Deputy Minister of Health of Azerbaijan Elsever Aghayev told reporters on Wednesday.

He said this ban is introduced in accordance with the law "On Advertising" and "On medicines", which highlighted the presence of annotations in the official language. In this regard, the Ministry has repeatedly warned pharmaceutical companies.

"We have recently set the deadline. After July 1, import of drugs without the annotation in the Azerbaijani language will be banned. We have the right to demand that the annotations are in the Azerbaijani language. Because the European countries with population of 2 - 3 million people, require that annotations to the drugs are in the languages of those countries. I think that we can successfully resolve this issue," said the deputy minister.

Today, 50 - 60 percent of the pharmaceutical market of Azerbaijan is formed due to drugs imported from developed European countries, he said. But in most cases companies of these countries do not want to make annotations to their drugs in the Azerbaijani language.

"If we take on a global scale, the pharmaceutical market of Azerbaijan is not so great. Therefore, these annotations must be put in the packaging of drugs, where they are produced. This is the main objective reason for the lack of liners in the Azerbaijani language in some medicines," said Aghayev.

The deputy minister did not agree with the statements that all Indian drugs are substandard. In India, there are over a thousand manufacturers of drugs, he said, most of them is pharmaceutical factories, which do not meet modern standards, the WHO standards. But there are also pharmaceutical plants in India that meet modern requirements. Aghayev noted the possibility of selling drugs on the Azerbaijani market of these manufacturers. He added that today 6 percent of drugs that have passed state registration in Azerbaijan are produced in India.